The new railway minister, Mr Mukul Roy, who had preferred to attend a Mamata rally, rather than visiting a train accident site at Guwahati during his tenure as minister of state for railways on July 11 last year, blamed the van driver for accident.
“As per preliminary information, the incident occurred due to negligent driving by the driver of the mini-van. The driver did not stop his van at the stop board short of level crossing to check for approaching train as prescribed,” Mr Roy said in Lok Sabha. He, however, announced an ex-gratia payment of `2 lakh each to the family of those killed in the mishap and `15,000 to the injured.
The UP government has also announced a compensation of `1 lakh each to the kin of the deceased persons and `50,000 each to those seriously injured.
In July 2011, Mr Roy had in fact had snubbed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh by ignoring his request to visit the accident site of the derailment of Guwahati-Puri Express.
Mr Trivedi, who increased train fares to generate money for safety of the Indian railways, had proposed to set up an independent Railway Safety Authority as a statutory regulatory body. He had also pointed out that over 40 per cent of the consequential train accidents, involving 60 to 70 per cent of the total casualties occur at unmanned railway crossings.
Talking about his priorities, Mr Roy announced that he would give priority to “safety, security and punctuality” on Indian railways. On the issue of rollback, Mr Roy said that “whatever I have to say, will say in Parliament.”
Protesting against any possible rollback, general secretary of the All-India Railwaymen’s Federation, Shiv Gopal Mishra said : “We want to save railways which is facing a huge financial crisis.”